Sunday, February 14, 2016

Building a 12th century Scandinavian Wooden Church

Time to build some war gaming terrain....

I was recruited into a project by my friend Micke(Dalauppror). The project is refered to as "Project F". It is supposed to be secret project. I will not reveal any important details regarding this matter. However Micke gave me an assignment linked to this project. I was supposed to build an early 12th century Scandinavian wooden church. Finally this assignment has been completed. It took roughly 3 days to build this terrain piece from scratch

The church is supposed to be used together with 28mm miniatures. The architecture is very much Viking in style. The Viking era came to close in the mid 11th century, but the transit to mainstream European medieval culture was gradual. The first Christian churches looked more like Viking Halls rather than the Romanesque Churches seen on the continent. The style remained in Norway, but in Denmark and Sweden these wooden churches were replaced by stone churches by the end of the 12th century.

The base structure was built using foam core. The the foam core was covered by wooden spatulas. I used a scissor to cut them into the right size and shape.

The roof was built using strips of thin card board.

The dragon heads were cut out of balsa wood.

The whole model is painted with a black base coat, followed by moss green. The moss green is applied with a dry brush.

It could easily double as an Viking-age temple. Add a free-standing bell-tower with a cross on the roof and a few graves nearby = church. Add a few idols, a blood-splattered altar and a yew tree nearby = temple.